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Marketing Connecticut
How marketing pros are forming new patnerships and new approaches to grow the state's tourism pie
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Business New Haven
2/19/2001
By: Deborah Ketai
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Most state agencies don't have a great reputation for cost-effectiveness.
At least one, however, has been getting up to a 4,000-percent return on its investment.
The folks responsible for this money-making venture are the state's Office of Tourism, part of the Department of Economic & Community Development (DECD). With direction from the Connecticut Tourism Council, the Office of Tourism spends millions each year to market the state as a travel destination.
Most of that marketing targets residents of neighboring states. Why? According to the results of a study released almost exactly one year ago by the Office of Tourism, visitors from the New York metropolitan area alone accounted for almost $100 million in Con
+necticut tourism spending in 1999.
That represented a more than 45-percent rise in New York tourist dollars over the previous year, a hike that the Office of Tourism happily dubbed a “record increase.”
Converting the Heathens
Those figures came from a telephone survey, part of an annual study to track the effectiveness of the state's marketing campaign. Investigators polled more than 700 of the 95,000 New Yorkers who had called Connecticut's 800-CT-BOUND tourism hotline between April 1 and August 31. Researchers wanted to find out how many of the callers had subsequently actually visited the state.
Inquiries to the Office of Tourism's toll-free number had risen sharply. Yet the conversion rate - the ratio of those who called and then visited to the total number of calls - remained at its all-time recorded high of 57.8 percent.
Past successes notwithstanding, DECD puts the marketing programs of the Office of Tourism out to bid every two years. DECD controls the funds and announces the contract award, but it doesn't evaluate the proposals. That task falls to the marketing committee of the Connecticut Tourism Council, which selects the winning plan.
In November, the group chose not one agency, but a consortium to spearhead the state's tourism marketing efforts.
The headline of the official media release trumpeted, “McLaughlin, DelVecchio & Casey, Stanton Crenshaw Communications, and he O'Neal Group join forces to form agency model for the 21st century.”
Together, the three firms not only covered the needed areas of expertise but also represented broad areas of the state.
McLaughlin, DelVecchio & Casey (MD&C), the actual recipient of the contract, would administer the funds and handle the advertising from its New Haven office. The O'Neal Group - essentially a marketing think tank, with offices in New York, Texas, and California, as well as Hartford - would craft the team's overall strategy. Stanton Crenshaw would take care of public relations; its Stamford and New York locations would form a convenient base from which to reach the New York metro target audience.
Jim McLaughlin, president, CEO, and self-proclaimed “copy chief of MD&C, acknowledges the team members' diverse qualifications and geographic representation. But his prime consideration in recruiting the partners, he says, was “to put together a team of people who knew the most about marketing Connecticut's tourism industry.”
Team Spirit
So how cohesive is this team?
On the surface, the consortium is a completely new working entity. No single project has ever brought all three firms together before.
A closer look, however, reveals multiple connections between and among these players. Surprisingly, the nexus is not Jim McLaughlin - but Bill O'Neal.
O'Neal's old firm, O'Neal & Prelle, was one of the top full-service agencies in New England before filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection last July. From its Hartford offices, it served a client roster that included the Norwich Inn & Spa, Mystic Hilton, the Simsbury Inn - and in the early 1990s, the state's Office of Tourism.
O'Neal & Prelle had put together a well-integrated campaign called “Connecticut: We're Full of Surprises.” Targeted primarily at the New York metropolitan area, the award-winning 1993 campaign featured Connecticut regions and attractions in TV commercials, regional print advertising, radio programming, direct mail and public-relations initiatives.
For years, McLaughlin says, he and O'Neal have been “neighbors and friendly competitors.” So when it came time to assemble the crème de la crème of Connecticut tourism experts, O'Neal was first on his list.
Both Steve Gaines, a veteran of O'Neal & Prelle's Connecticut tourism team, and Nicky McHugh, a former MD&C employee, had found new homes at Stanton Crenshaw, making that firm a natural choice for the public-relations component. (It didn't hurt that PR Magazine had named Stanton Crenshaw its Mid-Sized PR Agency of the Year for 2000.)
Now McLaughlin had his ad agency, a strategist and a PR firm. All he needed to round out the team was someone with direct day-to-day experience marketing Connecticut's attractions.
For six years, Donna Simpson had served as executive director of Mystic Coast & Country, a privately funded destination-marketing organization. She had no agency experience, but she had worked with O'Neal & Prelle from the client side, touting Connecticut's southeastern country and coast and Rhode Island's southern tip as “The Great Connecticut Vacation Getaway.”
Intrigued by the team's potential, Simpson approached the board of Mystic Coast & Country with a proposition. While still serving as executive director, she would work for several months to help develop the MD&C proposal for the Office of Tourism. In fact, the plan would list her as one of the key personnel. If they didn't win the contract, she would stay on with Mystic Coast & Country. But if they won, she would accept a position with MD&C.
Simpson persuaded the board that she could best help the organization by becoming a key player in the overall marketing of Connecticut tourism. Thus, when the Connecticut Tourism Council awarded the contract to MD&C, Simpson joined the agency as vice president and director of client services.
One of her contributions to the proposal was an emphasis on leveraging the team by involving people who actually work at Connecticut's attractions. She believes that focus made the proposal even more attractive to the Tourism Council, whose 14 members, appointed by the governor and legislative leaders, come from both public and private sectors of the travel and tourism industry.
“Well over half of the council members, and all the members of the marketing committee, are seasoned marketing people,” Simpson says. In tourism, almost “Anyone who's in the management end is also in marketing. We think there are synergies there that haven't been used.”
McLaughlin notes that the team has been involved in marketing research since last summer, well before the $6 million contract was awarded. Before writing the proposal, they intercepted and polled out-of-state visitors at Connecticut attractions. MD&C client Greenfield Online also produced an Internet survey in New York and Philadelphia.
Once the contract started on November 10, they joined the state in conducting the annual conversion study of 800-CT-BOUND. (Look for the results to be released within the next couple of weeks.)
Show Us Something
With 21 months left on the two-year contract, the team is putting the finishing touches on its strategy. For the past few months, O'Neal has taken the lead in some furious strategic brainstorming. Says Simpson, “The e-mail is burning all the time” between the partners.
Choosing which sites and regions to spotlight will be no easy chore. Perennial favorites such as Mystic Seaport and Aquarium? Less familiar attractions - for instance, the Connecticut Women's Heritage Trail or the New England Air Museum? The team wants to formulate a coherent message that will intrigue potential out-of-state tourists without confusing them.
Simpson and McLaughlin decline to reveal any details about the plan, including how they will allocate resources among print, broadcast and other media, because they've just presented it to the state, which hasn't signed off on it yet.
It will certainly do so by the end of March, however, when the campaign blueprint is sure to be a hot topic of conversation at the Governor's Conference on Tourism.
“The First Lady's Conference on Tourism” might be a more accurate name for this annual event, since Patricia Rowland serves as Honorary Chair of the Connecticut Tourism Council. The First Lady even co-hosts a radio program Fridays on WDRC-AM, during which she “shares her personal insights on what to see and do in Connecticut for the upcoming weekend.”
Whatever its name, the conference is produced by the Connecticut Tourism Council and the Office of Tourism, with support from more than 45 industry sponsors. Hundreds of tourism industry professionals from around the state will attend this year's conference, to be held March 29-30 at the Water's Edge Resort in Westbrook.
The highlight of the yearly gathering will be the 14th annual Unity Dinner, at which Gov. John G. Rowland, the First Lady and representatives of the Connecticut Tourism Council will present the 2001 Connecticut Tourism Industry Awards and Scholarships.
The 2001 Connecticut Travel Awards will honor individuals and organizations that have made lasting and outstanding contributions to the state's travel industry in any of several categories, including Tourism Person of the Year, the Spirit of Connecticut award, Excellence in Travel Promotion, Connecticut State Partnership, Media, Hospitality Education & Training, and Connecticut Ambassador.
The latter award, created by Patricia Rowland, recognizes “individuals on the front line of the tourism industry who create a positive and lasting first impression for visitors to our great state.” It's a “people's choice” kind of award, for which tourists, local residents and tourism industry representatives can nominate their favorite candidates. (Only Connecticut travel professionals can submit nominations for the other honors.)
Nominations close February 27. For more information, contact:
Barbara Cieplak, director of marketing, Connecticut Office of Tourism, Department of Economic and Community Development, 860-270-8088 or Barbara.Cieplak@po.state.ct.us.
Back at the Ranch
Meanwhile, will New Haven reap a tourist windfall from the state's marketing efforts? Rather than counting on it, the city has cut its own deal.
Coincidentally, the same week that MD&C received the state marketing contract, it placed second in the running for the three-year, $1 million contract to market the Elm City. The New Haven account went instead to Cashman & Katz, a Glastonbury agency.
McLaughlin's proposal would have put the same three-agency team (minus Donna Simpson) to work marketing New Haven. Though clearly disappointed to have lost the opportunity, McLaughlin says, “We love the city of New Haven. We're absolute fans.”
McLaughlin's enthusiasm for Connecticut in general and New Haven in particular might seem like the calculated statements of a veteran ad man. A look at his background proves otherwise. McLaughlin started out as a radio announcer on KQV, an ABC affiliate in Pittsburgh. (A where-are-they-now Web site for radio personalities calls him “Jolly” Jim McLaughlin.)
In 1964, he moved to Hartford to take a job with WPOP-AM and shortly thereafter came to New Haven to emcee a Beach Boys show.
He's never left.
Eudora Welty wrote, “Writers and travelers are mesmerized alike by knowing of their destinations.” If that's the case, Connecticut natives can expect the MD&C team to create an enchanting marketing campaign.
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